Major impending hardware failure

This bulletin is to make people aware of a major impending hardware failure involving a particular chip used in many networking and storage devices. To keep the site in the clear, I will not name the source of the chip nor the model number here. You will find what is speculated to be the cause of the issue in the links I will post below. In summary, the chip in question provides the timing signal for the affected devices. Apparently, the failure is time based in terms of time in operation. The agreed upon time of operation is 18 months. After the 18 months of operation has been reached, the chip in question can (and based on the information out there will eventually fail) at any time. When the chip fails, the device is rendered useless...essentially a brick. There is no firmware or microcode update that will fix this issue. The only fix is a total hardware replacement.

Cisco is the first manufacturer to go public with this problem. Here is their public announcement: